Strong praise from the blogosphere, Ebert & Roper, and just about everyone else for this instant classic. As a character, Wall-E is “better than R2D2″, according to tech blog Engadget, because “R2D2 was just a glorified extra”.
We can’t be sure if R2D2 would’ve had a future as a leading man, but by sheer unanimous adoration, Wall-E is the most adorable bucket-with-a-brain yet. Bottom Line: take the kids!
A reliable source has leaked this photo which the source says will soon appear on NikonUSA.com. The Nikon D700 will be a full-frame DSLR for $3,000 – significantly less then the $4,900 Nikon D3.
Once a model showcase of luxury home design, a Bridgehampton mansion is now being price-chopped from $27 million to $19.5 million. The credit mess is starting to affect the once unassailable high-end, as a foreclosure notice was recently filed against the home’s $4.4 million mortgage.
An unfortunate sign of the times, but if you’re in the market, and like the idea of an $8M discount, you might want to take a peek inside.
Want a full-frame DSLR, but can’t afford the nearly $5,000 Nikon D3? Then you’ve been waiting for the rumored Nikon D700, which is now starting to appear in real life. The price for 12 megapixels of full frame glory?
Expect to pay about $3,300 (body only MSRP), with a full blown Nikon media blitz in August and available storeside in December. The competition on the Canon side is the rumored Canon 5D Mark II, which is expected to be a slightly less expensive full-frame update to the excellent 5D (Mark I), and features 15-16 megapixels of full-frame glory.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Taking advantage of New York City’s growing prominence in the tech sector, Techspotter.com announces its launch today from the big Apple. The tech magazine will cover the latest technology news, review emerging websites and uncover gadgets worth owning.
“The difference between TechSpotter.com and other websites will be in quality over quantity,” says Media Telekom digital strategist Steven Eng. “While we are fans of the big tech websites out there, they use a rapid-fire approach to delivering any and all tech news. Perhaps this is to appease the search engines, but we believe that these days, the audience no longer has the time to read through 8 irrelevant stories to get to the two that he’s really interested in.
As a result, we will focus on providing a better filter on the tech category. Showing you for example, only the gadgets that we lust after, analyzing news that is ascendant, game-changing or part of a bigger trend and revealing new websites and resources you may not have seen anywhere else before. As I result, we hope the experience will not only be more useful, but enjoyable to read as well.”
TechSpotter.com is part of Media Telekom’s growing network of lifestyle titles that will be providing blog coverage for its flagship, The New York Herald.
Media Telekom properties include: The New York Herald, TechSpotter.com, BattleStates.com, CelebJunky.com, UrbanExports.com, BargainTravelers.com, MetroPost.com, NabeNews.com and BookTix.com.
PR contact: mediaverse (at) gmail
The Google Sandbox is a theory that Google filters for older, more established publishers. What it indicates is that the internet is quickly consolidating to a point that the newest websites should be advised to join legitimate mini-networks to get their attention.
The diss on Google News is that its algorithms don’t always get it right, or fast enough. In an often-cited example, Tim Russert’s death wasn’t noticed by Google until an hour after other major sources. But mathematically speaking, events like Tim Russert’s death is hard to assign a high-value to, until the moment it happened. We are afterall human, and we can not precisely know our own reactions, or the worlds until it happens.
One of the reasons Google News isn’t always consistent is because of the wide diversity of sources it culls from, but as recently as yesterday, these sources are starting to look alike. Instead of the Akron Gazette’s take on say, Obama’s flip flop, Google now strictly courts heavyweights: Washington Post, NY Times, CNN, Time, etc.
While we can not verify that a new policy or algorithm at Google is being implemented, the evidence from search engine marketers is that Google is refining their filters against anything too new, too small or too un-connected. Experts believe there is in fact, a filter against age*, keyword density, and in-bound links, all of which give a website its Pagerank as well as other forms of Google scorekeeping. As this becomes more and more refined, the net effect is the great consolidation of search data – meaning everything, online.
Practically speaking, one outcome is that the bar is being raised and the barrier of entry is getting higher for any online web publisher to make a running start from scratch. Instead the best strategy for such a person, is to invest in existing sites with Pagerank, PR links, good content.
These sites can still be valuable, given Google’s direction, even if they are not currently revenue producing. People have always thought more highly of a domain with a high PR value, and that premium will rise in prominence as Google refines their algorithms. While PR can and is being gamed, if we assume that PR too will be refined, a badge of trust from Google will be worth more than say, a catchy or keyword related domain name.
Website publishers don’t have time to be stuck in the Google Sandbox before they content is crawled, ranked and the veil of suspicion lifted. Buy purchasing a website with earned trust (high PR rank, many inbound links, not blacklisted, alot of niche content and old enough to be a toddler) you can get it going instantly.
With some optimization, Google will start pouring in the traffic as well as continue to reward this type of site with traffic to past content. Monetization of that traffic is a separate topic altogether, but at least you can get to that conversation, and into the wider arena, and out of the Sandbox.
After first being rejected, a re-design for revamping the historic Domino Sugar factory into waterfront condos has been approved. The original design added five stories of glass condos to the top of the 1884 building. Its since been reduced to four stories and now features the Dominos Sugar sign (currently on an adjacent building).
The $1.3 billion dollar waterfront condo project is expected to break ground in the Fall of 2009 and hold 2,200 units. Developers are quickly transforming Williamsburg’s warehouses into luxury-style waterfront condos such as Schaefer Landing, 184 Kent and The Edge.
Led by Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Spark Capital and existing investors Union Square Ventures and Digital Garage, Twitter received an estimated $15M infusion today. The actual number is undisclosed but is instead based on a previous report from PaidContent’s Rafat Ali who claims a new total of $20M in VC (their first round yielded $5M) and a $100M valuation.
The first order of business is to invest in infrastructure as overwhelming popularity has led to constant blackouts.
The second order of business will be to figure out how to make money, but “..our biggest opportunities will be worth pursuing only when we achieve our vision of Twitter as a global communication utility. To reach our goal, Twitter must be reliable and robust.” says co-founder Biz Stone.
It should also be noted that Twitter rides on Rails, and some have suggested a switch to PHP might help with scaling issues.
LONDON – A rare Monet painting of water lilies fetched $80.4M on Tuesday night at Christie’s. Experts were expecting Le Bassin aux Nymphéas to yield half that. The previous record for a Monet was $41.4M for “The Railroad Bridge at Argenteuil” at Sotheby’s in New York, only last month. The 3×6 feet Le Bassin aux Nymphéas was painted in 1919.
The selling owners were J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller, collectors from Columbus, Indiana. The winning bid belonged to Tania Buckrell Pos of Arts & Management International, a London company, who purchased the painting for an undisclosed client.
The painting is one in a series of four and is considered one of Monet’s most important from his later years. In the midst of a global art bubble boom, perhaps buyers were seeking a piece of a sure thing. One of the series, now in a private collection, sold at Christie’s in 1992 for $12.1 million.
photo: Andy Rain/European Pressphoto Agency
Pointless, perhaps, but whoever said being on the cutting edge was practical, or cheap? The $500 Altered Electric Skateboard is neither, but it does feature a self-powered longboard body that can go 8-12 miles on a single charge. That’s enough for tooling around the neighborhood, and with 0-19 mph in under just four seconds, you’ll burn those other guys still content with kick-push, kick-push.
